Welcome to the Painting Challenge. Here you will find the fabulous, fevered work from miniature painters from around the world. While participants come from every colour, gender, age and nationality, they have at least three things in common: they love miniatures, enjoy a supportive community and they have all taken the Challenge.
This site features the current year's event along with the archives of past Challenges.
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Well, at the beginning of the month, I posted five Blood Berets for Warzone Resurrection. I had originally planned to paint all 15 of them in one go, but had to reduce the initial batch to finish just those I needed for the tournament in Hamburg. Which was a wise decision, since I would not have made it. But little did I know how long it would actually take me to finish them. So many things in the real world demanded my attention that it took me over two weeks to do these (the initial batch had taken about three days). Anyway, these minis will now bring the close combat squad to eight troopers and the ranged combat one to seven. Although this is all a bit fluid, since the rules do not demand the whole squad to be armed the same!

To add to the minis I also scratch build nine AT-Mine markers. Each squad (or Blood Beret character) can deploy up to 3 of them and I know myself... if I do not have markers for them, I will forget them! :-/ So this last photo shows all of them (including the five posted earlier) and the AT-Mines.

From Curt:Very nice Burkhard. I like the camo pattern on their shoulderpads and leggings. I like these models a lot better than the similarly themed Imperial Guard troops from GW - they are more lean and seem better proportioned.

BTW, what did you use for your AT mines? How do the mine rules mechanic work in Warzone ? (Sorry, I'm an unrepentant rules junkie.)

Part of the fun I have with My Imagi-Nation the Grand Duchy of D'Argent is I get to "provide" friends and family with officers commissions.

Following practice of many an 18th Century Enlightened Despot I in my capacity as Grand Duke feel obligated to ensure that my siblings children are well taken care of.

When I learned by brother and his wife are anticipating the birth of a second son some time in may of this year it was time to look through the collection 18th century miniatures for to provide the young lad with a regiment.

Thus these Red and Yellow clad dragoons have been completed during the challenge. The colors were selected by the Duchess Ariana. My Brother and his wife have not yet finalized the name of my new nephew so for now these fellows are a nameless regiment.

I look forward to introducing the kids to their commands in few years.

There are 8 15mm figures (Essex I believe) on horse back which I make to be 32 Points.

From Curt:

Great work Adam. I really like the idea of giving 'commissions' to your regiments to family and friends - I do something similar with our Pulp and Cthulhu adventurers just for laughs. Here's to lovely May and the naming day of both your new nephew and his regiment!

Hello. This week I present 16 x 28mm plastics with 9 being FireForge Steppe Warriors and 7 Perry War of the Roses. The Black and the Red.... 5 archers, 1 Handgonne and 1 Pike. More recruits for the defenders of Beer and Bacon.

I am in the midst of reading a Mongol historical Novel series by Conn Iggulden and it provides great background for painting Mongols. While primarily a Pony mounted army on occasion they certainly did fight on foot. Not an entire army of course but parts of it. Incredibly adaptive tactics could result in Mongols crossing terrain too rough for mounts and appearing behind an army that thought its back was protected by that terrain.

Through the books I am getting an idea of how the Mongol war aspect evolved over time. Starting with Mongol vs Mongol tribal war or raids against tribes that border Mongolia like the Tar Tars. Later Heavy armoured horse and lance influenced by the Chin (much like a European knight), siege technology such as catapults through to artillery. The array of opponents they fought as well provides the wargamer with a massive amount of Historical scenarios.

Terrain as well is hugely varied so basing is also something you can get creative with. When burning Kiev and Moscow The Golden Horde had a preference for going to war in the winter. Frozen rivers became roads for the highly organised Mongol Tumans.

Very enjoyable set of miniatures to paint.From Curt:Ah, it's great to see more additions to House Beer & Bacon, but I must say these Mongol fellows are top notch as well. I really like how dynamic the poses are, especially with the splayed open hands loosing the arrow and the position of their heads/necks. Very cool.

I am not sure if Curt even remembers, but when he announced the theme for this year Challenge, I was cursing like mad. I had no idea what to do actually. Even worse not only was this the theme for this year (which meant the mini I would send to Curt would have to follow this theme), but also the theme for the last theme round. So I decided, that I would only do one mini for both and simply send Curt my theme round entry. Well that was about three months ago and in all the weeks that followed I contemplated what to do, I actually had a couple of ideas. And I felt that two were actually so good, that I could not decided which one to do and which one to pass by. So in the end I chose them both and here is my entry fee, which will be on its way to the plains of Canada soonish.

So what will Curt get? It is Death from Terry Pratchetts Discworld novels. I think he actually makes for a perfect Anti-Hero. Obviously when you think about Death the "Anti" part of "Anti-Hero" is obvious. Death is the inevitable end to everyone's life, coming for you without remorse regardless of your wish to remain or not. But why is he a Hero? Well Discworlds Death is a bit different. He is not unknown to show compassion for his customers, even trying to cheer them up at times. But in addition to that he is a loving and caring father and like any hero not without his faults. As such he looses his job at one time (only to get it back with vengeance). In addition to all that he is there to give a helping hand (although this can at times lead to peoples... err Death) or step in for someone else if needed. Like the time he takes over for the Hogfather (Discworlds version of Father Christmas) to make sure the job gets done.

One thing that I love about this mini is the little details, like the Death of Rats that are part of the actual mini.

In the past years, I have always send my entries with completed base to Curt. This year I have left the base plain. The reason is simple. In the novels Death lives in a house on a plain of existence that is completely in greyscale. Now I thought, that it would be great to either have some furniture or plants painted in greyscale on the base to show this. Now I completely suck at painting greyscale, while Curt is one of the undisputed masters at it, so I thought "why ruin something, when you have someone who is great at it". I hope Curt will forgive me this!

From Curt:

A wonderful interpretation of the anitihero theme Burkhard and thank you for the lovely figure. I'm particularly impressed with your painted effect of the Sands of Time hourglass - it looks so realistic. I also like this blue 'eyes' as it gives him a softer, more humane look, which I think reinforces the overall character.

Thanks again Burkhard, Death will be a formidable addition to the Antihero pantheon forming in my display cabinet.

You can't have All Quiet on the Martian Front without the Martian Tripods. After working up my test color scheme earlier in the Challenge I finally got around to painting one up.

The plastic kit went together really well, although I had to hunt around for an assembly guide first to make sure I put together the central part of the body. The paint job went on pretty quickly and was done mostly with drybrushing with the largest brush I have. I again tried for a greenish blue metal for the main body and brass details. I think it actually works even better on the larger tripod. Unfortunately I just noticed that I forgot to put a coat of gloss varnish on the eye after I varnished him, so he's going to have to go back into the shop tonight for a touch up.

What I like the most about this model is that it simply towers over the regular troops. While the All Quiet line is big for 15mm being closer to 20mm the tripod stands about 7" tall. I guess in scale that would be about 50 feet tall. The Tommies down below look more than a little outmatched!

From Curt:

Wonderful work Brian! I really like your smooth work on the metallics, especially the green/blue hue the brass details. The posing is great as well, with one of the legs up, poised for a purposeful stride ahead - very dynamic.

I agree with you that the choice to do this range in 15mm was brilliant as it allows the vehicles to be truly monstrous without being prohibitively expensive, taking up too much table space or being difficult to store.

My only real criticism to the walkers' design is thier 'face'. I had mentioned this last year when Miles showed us a early release of the models. To me the face looks incredibly dorky: either it gives the impression of a melodramatic Eye of Sauron or it looks like this one, something akin to a clown's nose. I think the upper carapace would look so much better turned around, with a smooth featureless face facing forward - much more chilling I think. Saying this, I guess I should put my money where my mouth is and pick up a kit to try it out...

Nonetheless, with my hangups regarding Martian design esthetic aside, this is a great model. Well don Brian!

Well as mentioned last week these are the last of my 15mm US Paratroopers. First up we have an engineer platoon.

7 stands in all. A command stand and thanks to Mr Docherty the Lieutenant is called Lt Spiers. Having run out of SMG figures I have given them M1 Carbines so they will now count as a rifle command stand. 3 other Rifle stands a .30 cal LMG stand and while they are not in the rules assigned a bazooka stand they are allowed 2 Flame thrower stands.

As with all the US Paras I have painted they all have the US flag on them. The Flame thrower stands just have a single figure on them as after all who wants to stand next to an extremely explosive bullet magnet. But they should scare the tanks and keep them away. Well at least I can hope. I could not find anyone selling US para flame throwers so I have used US Marine figures instead just thought to let you know before someone brightly points out the uniform discrepancy. I know I am a slacker and should have sculpted one from scratch. Yeah Like I was always going to! Yeah right!

Then we have the casualty figures for the game. 8 in all and all lying down. These are the figures you hope will never see the table top and then when you start playing wonder if 8 will be enough!

I did have enough .30 Cal teams so I have mad them up as well so I can swap them with Bar Gunners should points allow and these extra 5 stands should just about give me enough to replace all the BARs, (If I add the one from the Engineering platoon). It is always if points allow and having checked with the rules writer there is nothing stopping me having both BARs and .30Cals in the same platoon as long as I have no more than 3 in total. In the army list it refers to them as 30mm Calibre, so I guess that slipped past the rules proof read. Oh well.

And lastly for the US Paratroopers I have the odds and sod. In other words any base I could make with spare figures. Which is to say 1 additional sniper, 1 additional Garand Rifle stand and one M1/ SMG stand. I think these will mostly be unused and probably never see the tabletop but they are done now and you just never know. Maybe in the future they will change the army-lists. Who can tell. Not me that is for sure.

Points wise a lot less than last time only 42 figures of which 8 are lying down. So call it 38 15mm figures @2pts a figure should be 76pts. From Curt:

Like their compatriots from your last week's entry, these paratroopers are terrific. Your basework continues to sing with these fellows as well (I like the spray of red flowers and the reeds).

I particularly enjoyed your 'on-assignment' Marine-come-Paratrooper flamethrower operator. I can hear him drawling, 'So, just how far is Okinawa from Eindhoven anyway?' :)